Free Necessary Evil of Nathan Miller by Demelza Carlton Page A

only been a lot of blood because of the amount
of skin scraped off by the bullet as it sped past him. Damage he
sustained while trying to help me , I reminded myself. It could
have killed him and then I'd have been here, alone and helpless
and…
    I felt a sob rise in my throat and
choked it down.
    Nathan must have heard me, for he
turned toward me, looking concerned as he touched my arm lightly.
He extended his other hand toward me, too, the shirt still hanging
from his fingers.
    Chris, offering me his sweater to cover
my nakedness. Kindness in the dark…
    The memory came without warning and I
curled up in horror, trying to fight the dark dream in my head. The
day they took my clothes.
    I mumbled some reply to Nathan’s
worried question about my wellbeing, struggling to stay out of the
memory. I bit back a scream.
    I was so preoccupied I never heard him
leave the room. Before I realised it, I was alone with Judith
holding the sort of hospital uniform the surgeons wore, a grumpy
look on her face. It dawned on me slowly that I wasn’t going to
wear my backless nightgown in public, something I hadn’t thought
about. I was relieved, before I’d had a chance to worry.
    Judith’s grumpy because she doesn’t
like Nathan, I realised as she started speaking, her hissed
whisper trying hard not to be heard. "He never leaves. The whole
time you were unconscious, he barely left the room. He just kept
talking to you. It didn’t stop him trying to chat up the nurses,
though, sleazy bastard. He sat in the chair by your bed and
wouldn’t leave, even when I was changing your dressings." She slid
my hospital gown down and pulled the surgeon’s top over my
head.
    My voice was muffled by the dark blue
cotton. "Really? Why? Did he say?" What did he do to make you
dislike him so much?
    "He said he’d promised you something
and he wasn’t letting you out of his sight." She snorted as she
helped me to pull on the pants. She evidently didn’t believe
it.
    Wow. He really did keep his
promise . I still owed him for a lot. "Then I should
thank him, when he gets back." My voice was fainter than I wanted
it to be.
    "No!" She was vehement. She picked up
my hairbrush and set to work on my hair. "Don’t trust him. The way
he looked at you...When I changed your dressings, the way he just stared at you, without any emotion at all. He didn’t look
angry or upset or even interested, like he cared that you’d been
hurt. It wasn’t normal." She cleared her throat. "We’ve all been
really hoping you’d recover, with all you’ve been through. All the
staff on the ward, I mean, and in the ED. We don’t want your
boyfriend making life difficult for you, when you’ve been through
enough." Her expression held dire consequences for Nathan.
    I was at a loss for words. Hadn’t I
already noticed that Nathan’s treatment of me was far more clinical
than the brand of charm he used on the nurses? Of course his
behaviour would seem strange, if they thought he was my boyfriend.
"He does care that I’ve been hurt. It’s...complicated." I tried to
be honest, which also meant incredibly vague.
    "If you don’t want him here, all you
have to do is say and he’ll be thrown out of the hospital. He won’t
be allowed back in." She smacked the brush down hard on the bedside
table. She looked and sounded like she’d like to do something
similar to Nathan.
    I was touched that the hospital staff
would be so kind to me, especially as I still flinched when they
actually, physically touched me. "He’s only here because I want him
to be," I told her carefully. "If I didn’t want him here, I’m sure
he’d go home without you all needing to go that far." I paused,
registering her disappointment at not getting to evict Nathan. "But
it’s wonderful to know that if I needed help, you’d do that for me.
Thank you."
    We both saw Nathan coming up the
corridor and she left the room quickly, not saying another word,
though she definitely looked daggers at him.

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